Compliance with the terms of employment at summer jobs again supervised

Occupational safety and health inspectors will again be visiting summer jobs this summer to check that employers follow the rules of working life. At the same time, summer employees can ask the inspector for advice on matters that concern them. They can also call the occupational safety and health authority's telephone service at their own time if they do not want to talk about their matters at the workplace. The number is +358 256 808. Contacts are always confidential.

In inspections of summer jobs, special attention is paid to issues in which shortcomings were observed last summer. Most shortcomings were found in the organisation of occupational health care services and in employment contracts. Inspections are performed in different parts of Finland.

Occupational health care must also be arranged for summer jobs

In one in four of the summer jobs inspected last summer, the employer had not provided its summer employees with any statutory preventive occupational health care. 
Preventive occupational health care must be arranged even if the workplace was only open during the summer. Employees must know what services occupational health care provides and how to act in case of illness or accident, for example.

Employer: See instructions for drawing up an employment contract

Shortcomings related to employment contracts were observed in almost every third inspection last summer. Some employers had not given the employee the terms of employment in writing at all. 

“An employment contract should always be made in writing. If it is made orally, the employee must still receive the terms in writing,” advises inspector Saila Lähdesmäki from the Finnish Supervisory Agency.

Clear instructions for drawing up an employment contract can be obtained from the occupational safety and health authority’s webinar recording ”Työsopimusinfo pientyönantajille”. It can be found on tyosuojelu.fi/live50 (in Finnish). 

Young people must also be paid wages in accordance with the collective agreement

Shortcomings in the payment of wages were also found in last summer’s inspections. Among others, young people had not been paid compensation for Sunday work or had been paid too little given their work experience. 

“Young people, too, should be paid in accordance with the universally binding collective agreement,” says Lähdesmäki.

Light entrepreneur or employee?

If the inspectors meet light entrepreneurs during their visits, they will assess whether they are genuinely self-employed or whether the characteristics of an employment relationship are met. If the question is of an employment relationship, the young person is entitled to sick pay, annual holiday compensation, occupational health care and occupational disease and accident insurance, for example. 

A client using the services of a light entrepreneur can assess this themselves by following the instructions on the Tyosuojelu.fi website on the page Characteristics of an employment relationship. 

Inquiries:
Inspector Saila Lähdesmäki, 295 255 705, [email protected]
Inspector Tiina Häyrinen, 295 255 433, [email protected]
Finnish Supervisory Agency, Occupational Safety and Health Department